Important note: I'm not a physician.
I can always start fellowship at that age and be done fellowship at 35 and accept the fact that I'll never be a millionaire.
A more commonly-used definition of
millionaire is someone who has $1M+ in net worth. In other words, it's not about bringing in $1M+/year in income but actually being worth that much. +/- including your house into the assets calculation.
Seems safe to say that most physicians don't hit the 7-figure income stat, so don't place your life mission on it. From what I've seen, those who achieve that kind of income get it from
multiple income streams. In other words, you'd have to learn some business skills in order to diversify your revenue sources. Some docs buy out a practice and can increase earnings through profit sharing. Or open multiple medical practices in areas in which they're familiar.
More rarely, there are docs who score niche faculty/dean positions at top schools who pull in something like $900K-$1.3M/year or whatever. I assume these positions are extremely rare.
If you're a research scientist superstar, you could become a PI and run a profitable lab that's well-funded. A friend's father (PhD only) runs a pediatric cardiology lab and pulled in $600K, then $800K, then who knows where he is at now. But there's almost zero clinic stuff and you have to really live and breathe research and find tremendous luck. And publish like it's your life source. Most researchers I know are constantly in states of begging for grants and living off scraps, so it seems a risky career move if you wanna strike it rich.
If you have the charismatic personality for it (and fantastic butt-kissing skills), you could be a celebrity doctor on TV and sell out.
If you have a knack for writing books, you could maybe leverage your knowledge base and write clickbait diet books or something. Authors can sometimes make decent passive income streams through book royalties, but hitting the big leagues requires years and writing multiple books. Hopefully you won't have to sell out your ethics and turn into Kevin Trudeau or something.
Medical Secrets THEY Don't Want You To Know! for $18.99!
You could work your way up to hospital CEO -- provided you have the business and leadership skills -- where you'd be like 99% businessperson and 1% physician. I presume many/most CEOs of mega-hospitals bring in at least 7-figures in salary + bonus + stock options.
Along the "owning your own medical practice" angle, you could research the Return-On-Investment (ROI) of owning various facilities. For example, if you train as a sleep physician, you could open up a sleep facility with X # of beds and make $Y revenue, and you could keep expanding. Alternately, you could open up an imaging center and compete with hospitals for MRIs, CTs, etc.
You could leverage your MD/DO degree and go into the Pharmaceutical or BioTech industries. You wouldn't necessarily be a traditional doc but the money
might be there if you swing the right opportunities.
Honestly, my gut impression is that you're putting the cart before the horse. It's smart to set goals and work backwards to find out the steps to achieve those goals, but it seems like you're setting yourself up for failure, disappointment, and clinical depression should you decide to hitch your happiness wagon to the income horse. You may soon realize as you get older that there is more to life than your AGI on your 1040.
Investing (in stocks, real estate etc.) seems like a nice financial side gig. But then again - I barely know anything when it comes to investing. Doesn't mean I'll never do it either - It's just too early right now. I'm still in med school.
Seems you're treating "investing" as this magical way to build wealth quickly or as a "side gig." It's not. Think of it as a surefire way to build wealth slowly. And it's never too early to start
learning about personal finance and investing, even if you're drowning in debt and don't have any income; e.g. most medical students.
Some free suggestions:
- White Coat Investor: Blog/Website - From an SDN native and partner! Devour this and read until you've read everything. There's both generic articles that apply to everyone as well as articles that apply specifically to health care professionals, especially physicians.
- Bogleheads Wiki and forums - Such a wealth of free knowledge and information. Maybe start with the "Getting Started" wiki article. Learn all about the value of passive investing to reduce costs and know how to diversify properly and how to manage income, taxes, and wealth properly. Many people in the forums are older and wise and very kind. And many are worth well north of $10M. Learn from them.
- (Note, this link is a PDF) - If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly by Bill Bernstein, MD, PhD - a short, free, 16-page e-book that provides casual wisdom to those in their 20s and 30s. Dr. Bernstein is a finance author and guru and retired physician and also a "Boglehead" who subscribes to Boglehead wisdom.
First, slow down and acquire knowledge before acquiring income and wealth. You're really going to need some business skills in order to best achieve your goal of a 7-figure income. And in residency, be sure to max out a Roth IRA and your workplace 403(b)/401(k) as much as possible and strive to keep your lifestyle low. And in your early years as an attending, make a best effort to "live like a resident" and divert all excess income towards aggressive loan repayment and aggressive tax-advantaged investing and aggressive taxable investing.
Knowledge + hard work + luck/opportunity.
